


Roses Out of Nothing

by MirandaShepard_93



Category: Gears of War (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Damon Baird is a secret romantic, F/M, Gift Giving, Implied Sexual Content, Romance, shameless fluff, utter fluff, valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29465865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaShepard_93/pseuds/MirandaShepard_93
Summary: Damon Baird has never been good at the Romance thing, but after years, decades, of war he finds himself with a yearning for it. He tries to act in the spirit of Valentine's day with that in mind.AKA - A sweet, fluffy romance fic where Baird shows his soft side. AU where everyone lives, Sam ends up with Carmine (she deserves someone who's just THAT into her) and Dom is an uncle to baby JD while Anya is a career woman and Marcus plays house-husband.
Relationships: Damon Baird/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Roses Out of Nothing

Damon Baird couldn't remember being a child, but he could remember a vague sense of softness. Soft clothes, soft beds, soft skin. The war beat all of the softness out of him quickly; by the time he was in his mid-twenties, his body felt like a slab of cold meat. Soft things seemed useless to that body. When it was all over and the COG gave him a parcel of land as a 'gift' (more of a responsibility, in the end), he didn't bother to bring the softness back. And then Iona came. She kind of... fluttered in one day, like a butterfly. Which was appropriate because after a stern talking-to from a land minister he had hired her to do _something_ with the gardens around the half-built house. At first, it was just flashes of her in the garden; she worked in cream trousers and a yellow blouse with a big, floppy brimmed hat. It was so ludicrously casual. So pre-war. As if none of it had ever happened; he found himself staring at her from the window, eyes narrowed, knuckles white until, one day, he asked her why, 

_"I just wanted a little colour in my life again,"_ she had said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, smearing dirt as she did so, _"and after all that, dirt on cream culottes doesn't seem like a real problem."_

She was right, of course, and he had told her so. She laughed, then, and it was like someone broke a pane of glass in his head; fresh air and sound and colour came flooding in with that laugh. For the first time in... well, forever, he ahd blushed, rubbing the back of his neck and squinting like a schoolboy. If she noticed, Iona said nothing. She had just kept working, so he left, feeling the itch of that laugh all day and well into the night. And then he had started to visit her as she worked, speaking in passing, asking questions, until she patted the grass beside her, one day, and offered him a bottle of soda. They drank in silence until he found himself reaching out and touching a strip of red skin on her shoulder, 

_"Sorry,"_ he had spluttered and took his hand away as if burned, before she could really react, _"looks sore, is all... I can - I have lotion for that?"_ And she had reached out and placed her hand on his face. It had been that simple; no great love story, no unfortunate miscommunications. She had known what he was working up to before he did, and she didn't bother to wait for his clumsy advances to get better; she took him as he was. 

He smiled at her shoulder in the half-light of the morning, pulling her closer. Iona had brought softness into the house with her, at first by accident; she left a scarf or a shirt, and some underwear. These little, white cotton panties with yellow flowers on them, they looked so delicate compared to his shorts. So pretty. A little old-fashioned, childish even, but somehow they suited her. She surrounded herself in flowers and softness. Everything she owned had daisies or roses or forget-me-nots stitched into it in some way. Creeping vines and butterlfies seemed to leap from her clothes and journal into the real world; she had been working in the garden for three months when the first butterflies started to show up, drawn by the mix of wildflowers and berry bushes she had ringed the garden with. Ivy made its way up the shell of the house he was building, making it look older and grander than it was. 

Then he had fired her, and she smiled - she moved in the next day, bringing more softness. 

Pillows and throws and blankets seemed to appear from nowhere. And flowers, of course, and he just let it happen, bemused by the sudden changes. In the mornings he ran his hands, battle scarred and so damaged they were almost numb, through the soft layers of fabric that she had piled on their bed and wondered if the softness would ever get inside of him. It already had, of course; the smell of her hair and the sound of her warm breaths on his chest shook something loose, making him tear up without warning one morning. She took that in her stride, too, holding his head in her lap while he howled and sobbed and then, when he was done, she made eggs, 

_"there, aren't you glad I harassed you into building me that coop?"_ She had asked with a laugh as she put eggs and fresh bread down on the bed, and he agreed that yes, he was glad. He was so glad that she was here, he had said, and she just smiled and kissed him and told him that she loved him. It was all so easy for her. He said it back, too late, and she smiled and shook her head, _"I know, Damon, you don't need to say it."_ She had said, and slipped into his lap, _"you show me every day."_ And it was true, of course, but there were words too, stuck inside his head, that only came out when she pushed him onto his back and rode him to distraction. She was strong, too; he felt the power in her hips as they moved. He felt the strength of her thighs when they clamped around his head and and the power in her fingers when her hands twisted in his hair. 

And all of that was why he was standing in the garden with a half-built beehive in front of him and blood running from the finger he had accidentally hammered a nail into, 

"Bastard." Not the most romantic word on the planet, he had to admit. Building a beehive, as it turned out, was not the same as building a chicken coop. It was nothing like building a bot, either. It was harder. "I'm not a fucking carpenter." He growled at no-one in particular, "Jack?!" The bot materialized, as he always seemed to, "can you build this?" He transferred the coop blueprints into his harddrive. Jack beeped an affirmative, or at least Baird assumed that it was, maybe Jack was telling him to go fuck himself, and started to work. He slumped into his chair in the slightly open air room that was doubling as a workshop while the actual shop was having equipment fitted. The reflection of his face in the screen didn't seem real; he looked... well, he looked like a forty-odd year old man. Which is what he was. "You ugly bastard," he sighed, "how the fuck did you get it this good?" He touched the reddish purple mark from she had left on his neck and grinned. 

The smell of the garden floated in on the breeze, a mix of sweetness and earthiness. She had worked wonders with the mud slick the COG had given him. For a while there were mushrooms everywhere, to soak up the poisons in the earth, she had explained, and then dried them and put them in jars. Something that he decided he wouldn't ask about. Then there had been quick growing bushes, first. Blackberries, they grew, and they did so with frightening speed, separating the garden of the house from the wider land that came with the plot. Over the two years that she had been here they had flourished. The problem was keeping them in check, actually. Then the wild flowers around and between them. Finally some trees, fruit trees as it turned out. How she had gotten a hold of them he still didn't know, but he saw her cutting from them now and then, sending the cuts away and taping imported limbs to them at later dates. There was a monster of a tree at the south-easter corner of the garden that grew plums, apples, and pears, how he didn't know. It was a working garden, she said, just like the COG wanted. There also happened to be flowers there, though, towering over the shoots of hardy root vegetables and snaking through the fruit bushes. Here, though, the strongest smell was tomato vine. When the storm shutters closed, the estate became an enchanted garden; animals had started to take refuge with them, too, and he couldn't bring himself to mind at all. 

"It's magic," she said, making him jump. Iona was standing in the doorway in a floor-length summer dress. The kind of thing that was just too pretty to rip off of her which, he reflected, was a real shame, "what you do in here, I mean." She crossed the room and massaged his shoulders. The memory of her gasping and panting, bent over his desk, surfaced suddenly, like a punch to the gut, making him close his eyes before he turned his head to kiss her hand, 

"No, just mechanics."

"You make things out of nothing," she said, "I think it's magic."

"I think it's easier than making things grow," he said with a chuckle, "that takes patience."

"Maybe," she said and leaned to kiss his neck, making him take a tiny gasp of air, "patience certainly isn't your strong suit." 

"No." The memory of her panties giving way under his hands, tearing like so much wet paper while she squirmed under- "no, it's not," he said again and laughed. Iona kissed his ear and patted his shoulders, 

"I have to go check the vegetables... I can't wait until the COG ease off," she said suddenly, "I'd love to grow roses without being accused of trying to starve the country." Baird laughed and nodded, 

"Amen to that." In the fragrant silence she left behind, an idea started to form. Damon Baird scratched his head and, for the first time, let some softness into hm. He checked the calendar on his PC. Seven days - it was enough time. Iona moved bees into the hives before the last nail had even settled; she had been planning for his temper tantrum, it seemed. They arrived the day the next day, and she kissed a spot of steel between Jacks shining headlamps in thanks. The hum of the hives filled the half-finished workshop, and he learned quickly not to slap at anything that tickled unexpectedly. She only tutted and removed the tiny bee corpses, though, digging the stingers from his skin without malice. She didn't even notice the metal box that was taking shape on his desk. 

"Who gives a fuck about valentines day anymore?" He growled as a particularly stubborn mechanism stuck for the fifth time. The answer, of course, was almost nobody - except him. He cared now. He pushed through the frustration and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He had built AI-capable defence bots, attack bots. Bots for building settlements and _farming._ Why was this so difficult? Because, he realised as he downed another cup of scalding coffee, it was halfway between creation and growth. It was almost like being a motherfucking gardener, but with the lovely addition of the possibility that the plant might short-circuit and fry itself completely. He sighed ad lowered the magnifying glass again.

"Damon?" 

He hurried to hide the box, 

"Yes?" 

"Why are you still down here? It's three in the morning?" She looked like heaven; all white, billowing clouds of fabric and loose curls, 

"I just have something to finish up," he said, "I'm nearly done."

"You've done this every night this week, it's not healthy," she said and crossed the space between them, hugging him tight. The press of her breasts against his back set a fire in him, "I miss you," she whispered into his ear, and the implication was pretty clear. Her hands slid under his shirt as he craned his head to kiss her, 

"I just need one more night," he said, and quashed the guilt as she hid her disappointment, 

"Ok, love," Iona murmured, "I'll see you in the morning." The desire to follow her was matched by the ache in his cock, and only just outweighed by the need to see the project through. It would be worth it, he thought, when she saw what he had made. Made from nothing? Not quite. Though she seemed to think so, even he couldn't do that. This rose wasn't made from nothing, but it had grown inside him, in a way, and he had brought it out into the world as best he could with scraps of metal and paint and wires. There was no softness to it, but when he hit the mechanism, it looked like it was growing. The tiny metal petals unfolded smoothly and shone in the light. He smile at it, and on a whim added a tiny watering can. The mechanism would take a few more hours to install... but he had time. 

Holding a tray and opening a door wasn't as easy as she had made it look in the past, but he managed it without major incident, waking her up with his muttered curses and growls. Iona was sitting up in bed, smiling at him quizzically when he managed to free his boot from its position between the door and frame, 

"Damon?"

"Er... happy Valentines day?" It sounded like a question - he grinned awkwardly as she blinked and suddenly laughed, 

"So it is," she said and clapped her hands over her mouth, "thank you." 

"I made... well I made a cheese sandwich... the chickens weren't keen on giving up eggs."

"They pecked you." 

"They're vicious little shits."

"They really are," she said and shook her head, "cheese is fine."

"I made coffee."

"I can see that."

"I feel like an idiot." He shifted from foot to foot, 

"You're not," she said and beckoned him, "well, not for this anyway. You're very sweet." She patted the bed beside her, "not the tray, dear, you." 

"Oh..." Eventually she took it from him, holding it steady while he kicked off his boots and clambered into bed.

"What's this?" She poked the box, "automatic mustard spreader?" It was a joke, of course, but his weary mind considered the idea before discarding it, 

"Haha, funny. No, it's - well, it's for you." He scratched his cheek. "A... present?" 

She put her half of the sandwich down and picked up the bod; about three inches tall and wide, with a tiny watering can on top, it looked like... well it looked like a metal cube. She gave him a probing look, 

"Is this what you've been hiding away for?" She asked. He nodded and she reached over to squeeze his hand, "it's very pretty." 

"No, that's not," he started to speak and sighed, "it's not - you have to push the watering can. No, tilt it. Like you're - yeah." She pressed the tiny can with one finger, tilting it as if to water the box, and the release mechanism clicked. The series of clicks that rippled through it as the centre panel slid away and the flower started to bloom were the only sound in the room. She watched it in silence, the fingers of her free hand pressed to her mouth. When it stopped moving, she put it down on the tray and moved it to the floor, "I-"

"Shut up," Iona said and dragged him in for a kiss. It was a good kiss, as far as they went, but her teeth slammed into his top lip at first, and somewhere along the line, between the tiredness and the bone-shaking desire to throw her on her stomach and fuck her, he noticed that she was crying. 

"Why are you crying?" 

"It's just so beautiful," she said and sniffed, rubbing her cheeks before kissing him again, "it's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." 

He hated himself for the satisfaction that gave him, but it didn't go away, 

"I'm glad," he said, "not that - well, you know."

"I know." She pressed her forehead to his. She _always_ knew exactly what he was trying to say. "Thank you."

"I love you," he said and this time it was easier. Iona smiled, 

"I love you, too." 


End file.
